[or-roots] List inactivity, roll call

[Marilyn Schwartz]

Roll call?  I’m still here, although I haven’t posted in years.  This list and so many wonderful contributors were wonderful to me in the past!  

 

My genealogy search began because I knew NOTHING of my father’s ancestors beyond his mother and the name and a few details about his father.  We found one scrap of paper written by a paternal aunt, naming Dad’s paternal grandmother, and telling us Dad’s father was born in the Willamette Valley.  This list and a few others was a huge blessing to us!  We have learned so much!

 

Two sets of GGGrandparents settled in the Willamette Valley:  Bluford B. and Martha W. Marks, and William and Margaret Noble.  The Marks family crossed the Oregon Trail in 1853, and first homesteaded above Sweet Home, on Marks Ridge.  The Nobles crossed in 1850 and settled down in the  valley near Sweet Home, where Noble Slough crosses their homestead.  Both families eventually moved east, to the Prineville area.

 

Next generation, Charity Ann Noble married James P. Marks.  Their son, George Alfred Marks, was one year old when the family was caught in a snowstorm on Santiam Pass.  Charity, at the age of 19, went into early labor and she and her infant died on the pass in 1875.  There is a historical marker near Fish Lake where they are buried.

 

James P. Marks remarried, a Margaret Hedgpeth (sp.?), and the new family moved to Wyoming and then Montana.  A series of early and tragic deaths followed, explaining why there was little family history recorded.

 

One brother of James P. Marks was Benjamin Marks, who settled in the Imnaha Valley and raised a big family.  Another brother, John P. Marks, became the first Superintendent of Schools in Yakima, WA.

 

One brother of Charity Noble was, I believe, the first mayor of Prineville.

 

I must admit that although I have continued to read posts on this list, after I found so much information early on my curiosity was somewhat satisfied for a time.  And, I began welcoming grandchildren, and the focus of my spare time shifted (smile).  But I will get back to it someday.  I know there is still much to learn!  (Oh yes, and I still need to organize what I have!)

 

I am SO thankful to those on this list who were helpful to me in my search.   A big THANK YOU!  It is such a treat to find stories about these ancestors, not just names and dates, and to get to know them even if it’s just a little bit.

 

--Marilyn Schwartz

 

P. S. My birth surname would have been Marks, but my father took the name of his stepfather.  His biological father, George A. Marks, died in a terrible accident the day that my father was born.  I was blessed to find online his obituary and newspaper articles about the accident.  So interesting – and satisfying to find it all.

 

 

 

 

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